TV Bits: ‘Arrow’ Season 6 Trailer, ‘Young Sheldon’ is (Somehow) a Hit, Watch The First 6 Minutes of ‘The Gifted’, and More

The CBS prequel Young Sheldon has, regrettably, earned a full series order

Watch the first six minutes of Fox’s new X-Men TV series The Gifted

Zachary Levi still wants to make a Chuck movie

And more!

Here’s the new trailer for Arrow season 6. I’ve never watched this show so I admittedly don’t have the emotional context necessary to appreciate whatever is happening here, but I have to tell you that I laughed out loud when Stephen Amell asked his kid to point to the bad man, and the kid pointed directly at him. Just me, or did anyone else find that hilarious in a “so bad it’s good” kind of way?

Armando Iannucci, the the director of the upcoming comedy The Death of Stalin, left Veep (which he created) after a few seasons, but he’s staying with HBO. Deadline says he’s created a new comedy series called Avenue 5. We don’t know much about it other than it’s supposedly set on a space ship, but considering Iannuccui’s unique voice, it’s easy to imagine how this will be like everything else he’s done, only in space this time. Which is to say: it’ll probably be freakin’ hilarious.

Young Sheldon. It’s an idea that should have been laughed out of the room, but at a certain point, I suppose a TV franchise becomes too big to fail. The Big Bang Theory prequel inexplicably became the most-watched series premiere since 2011, and since 17.2 million people tuned in to watch it, the network has given it a full season order of 22 episodes. Prepare to drown in Young Sheldon commercials for the next decade.

Pour one out for Spike TV: the channel will officially be rebranded into The Paramount Network in January of 2018, signaling a shift toward…well, frankly just better content. (They have a mini-series called Waco coming up soon.) So say goodbye to shows that debate if it’s possible to fart so hard that your balls explode.

What’s the next ’90s TV reboot on the way, you wonder? I’m glad you asked. The answer is Party of Five, which is being developed with an immigration twist. The original show followed five kids who kept their family together in the wake of their parents’ death in a car crash, and the new show will follow “a first-generation Latino family who have immigrated to the U.S. and are living through the highs and lows as they learn to make it in a new country.” We’ve seen a topical remake of an older series work recently with One Day at a Time, so maybe this will be in that vein.

Actor Zachary Levi is still holding out hope that a movie version of his NBC spy series Chuck gets made, telling EW:

“I’d love to do it. As far as I know, I’m the only person who’s affiliated with the show that’s been trying to make it happen on some level. I’ve had meetings with various people. There’s just so many moving parts. The answer is I’d love to still make it happen, even if it’s 10 years down the line. Because of the world, it could still be plausible. It’s just difficult. Warner Bros. has the rights to it, I don’t have a script. And in order to get the rights, I need to probably get a script, but in order to get the script, I need to pay a writer, but if I’ve got to find the money then in order to get the money, I need to make sure I have the rights. It’s like a Catch-44. [Laughs]

I went to the whole cast years ago and said, ‘If I ever get a movie together, would you do it?’ And everyone was like, ‘We’re totally in.’ A lot of people have asked if we could do another season and there’s no way we could do another season. But I think that Chuck as a premise totally works to go do movies here and there. It’s a goofy American Bond. We had our baddies of the week, we can have baddies of the movie. You add a little bit more money, a little bit more time, maybe go shoot in some actual international destinations, you make a fun 90-minute movie, and release it online. I think we can do that, but there’s a lot of moving parts and I’m the only one who’s trying to get all the moving parts together. So, we’ll see.”

Doesn’t exactly sound promising, but I wouldn’t be surprised to see them crowdfund something small and put it online for the diehard fans. I don’t think the general public is really clamoring for more Chuck content these days. But then again, I think Young Sheldon looks godawful, so what do I know about the general public’s tastes?

I wasn’t expecting much from this stop-motion SpongeBob SquarePantsHalloween special, but I must say the stop-motion effects look pretty spectacular here. Should be a fun Friday the 13th activity for the kids when it arrives on Nickelodeon next month.

Let’s wrap this up with the first six minutes of The Gifted. Look, I don’t like being negative, but I’ve gotta be real with you: this seems like just another run of the mill network show. The action isn’t exciting (that chase sequence is horrendous), and the characters make dumb decisions that don’t make it easy to pull for them. Regrettably, I won’t be watching more of this. Let me know if you’ll give it a shot.